National Strategy and Action Plan for Environmental Health.

This national cross-sectoral document presents a national Strategy and initial Action Plan to reduce the public health impacts of exposure to environmental pollution in the UAE. The purpose is regulating national and municipal agencies in the UAE toward the objective. Responsible body for planning, implementation and monitoring the policies of this document is the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi (EAD).
Cooperation among the agencies in the public and private sectors across all seven emirates and among the stakeholders will be the key to achieving this objective, with a twin-track approach, in both short-term (2014) and long-term (2030). Suggested time frames for the undertaking and completion of these initiatives are included. The Strategy consists in identifying and preventing health threats caused by environmental factors, reducing the burden of disease caused by these factors and strengthening the capacity of the UAE government in this area. The document focused on 8 priority areas: Outdoor Air, Indoor Air, Occupational Exposures, Climate Change, Drinking Water, Coastal Water, Soil and Groundwater, and Produce and Seafood. For each priority area, 6 targets has been identified: 1) Reduce pollutant levels and human exposures to pollutants; 2) Improve data quantity and availability; 3) Improve scientific understanding of environmental health risks; 4) Build sustainable human and institutional capacity; 5) Support urban development that promotes environmental health; 6) Improve environmental awareness. The remaining sections of this Strategy and Action Plan describe in detail the recommended initiatives for each priority area and each target, highlighting the stakeholders involved in each of the proposed initiatives.